Can you guess the biggest on screen fantasy battle of all time?

BritFlix Buzz, Film

Next year [2022] is set to be a huge year for fantasy fans, with the release of a new Batman film, a Lord of the Rings Amazon series and a Game of Thrones prequel to name a few.

In honour of the exciting year ahead, airsoft retailer Patrol Base has looked back at some of the biggest on screen battles of all time, measuring just how big they really were. The results are surprising; the Battle of Hogwarts in the last instalment of the Harry Potter film franchise, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II may have looked huge on the big screen, but it’s only miniscule compared to the likes of the Hobbit’s Battle of the Five Armies and Game of Thrones’ Battle of Winterfell.

The video attached shows the biggest fantasy battles of all time, with infographics displaying the ratio of good guys vs. bad guys.

The Battle of Exegol (Star Wars)

> 33 million fighters

The Battle of Winterfell (Game of Thrones)

228,000 fighters

The Battle of the Pelennor Fields (Lord of the Rings)

211,000 fighters

Battle of the Five Armies (The Hobbit)

171,000 fighters

Battle of Earth (Avengers Endgame)

20,000 – 80,000 fighters

Season 7 Finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer

< 5,000 fighters

The Battle of Hogwarts

< 1,000 fighters

With more than 33 million fighters, Star Wars’ Battle of Exegol is by far the biggest on screen battle in history. The battle consisted of 1,080 Star Destroyers, each with a crew of 29,585, as well as 16,000 spaceships that all held a crew of no less than a million.

Some franchises even exaggerated battle sizes for their on-screen adaptations. Lord of the Rings director, Peter Jackson, previously confirmed that the Battle of the Pelennor Fields saw an army of 200,000 antagonists in the film, despite only being 45,000 in the book. Similarly the Hobbit’s Five Armies consisted of 171,000 fighters in the film and only 6,000 in the book.

Could one of 2022’s new fantasy releases make the list too? Amazon’s Lord of the Rings TV series is said to have a startling budget of £450 million, so we’re expecting big things!